Understanding Being Filled With The Holy Spirit

Look at Luke 1.15 for example. It says in Luke 1.15 regarding John the Baptist, and we discussed this at length in an earlier message, for he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and here is one of the things that will characterise him, shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, but he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. There’s that same contrast. He won’t be a drinker, he will be spirit-filled. He will not have his religious attitudes induced by wine and strong drink, but by the Spirit of God.

He will not be influenced on the inside by drinking, but by the Spirit of God. He will not be motivated by what alcohol does to his brain, but by what the Spirit of God does to his mind. In other words, he will be guided by the Spirit of God in contrast to that which guides so many people in drunkenness. Look at Acts 2 and we find the same contrast again. On the day of Pentecost, you’ll remember, it says in chapter 2, verse 4, that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak with other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. And here were the disciples and they began to speak all these languages, and it even names the languages over in verse 9. It lists the various languages, again in verse 10 and verse 11, and they were speaking all of these wonderful works of God in languages they’d never learned. The Lord miraculously gave them the ability to do that, and the point was when they were filled with the Spirit at the day of Pentecost, this is what happened.

So being filled with the Spirit, they did this. But the people said in verse 12, they were all amazed, perplexed, and they said, what meaneth this? And others, mocking, said, these men are full of glucose, new wine. This is just another pagan orgy, this is just a typical Gentile, pagan kind of religious activity, see. They were seeing it, and to a Jew would be a very distasteful thing, Gentiles who induced their worship through drunkenness. This is just that, they have stooped to a Gentile kind of worship, they have stooped to a paganism, they expressed their worship to God in this unacceptable manner, and it’s a mocking thing.

In other words, they must have set out to get drunk. Glucose was fresh wine. They say here it is early in the morning, and they’re already bombed on the fresh kind of wine. They’re mocking them. Boy, they’ve induced this drunkenness. These are typical pagan activities. And so they mock them, and then they say, who wants to listen to what they have to say? Peter stands up and says in verse 15, these are not drunk as you suppose. This is not drunkenness. This is the filling of the spirit. But the world in its stupidity sometimes doesn’t know the difference between the expression of a pagan worship and that which is real.

And so the comparison is used several times. Now let’s go back to Ephesians 5 18, and we find the same comparison again. Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the spirit. And I’m sure Paul has in his mind the account at Pentecost. I’m sure he’s looking back and thinking of that very thing, the day when the apostles and disciples were first filled with the spirit of God. They did things which looked to others as if they were drunk and exercising a pagan style of worship. And so there’s the contrast.

Now let’s look at the command, and we’re just going to spend our time on this, and it’s just a tremendous truth. And many of you know this, and you’ve studied it before, but many of you haven’t, and many of you are new. And so we want to take our time and share these thoughts with you. Just a tremendously rich command. Look at it in verse 18. Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Now what he’s saying is that this is something that I demand of you. This is a command.

There is in the Greek language an indicative mood, which is a statement of fact, and there is an imperative mood, which is a command. This is an imperative. Be being kept filled with the spirit. This is a command for the believer. This is not an option. This is not a suggestion. God rarely, if ever, has made a suggestion. He makes commands, and he states facts. He doesn’t deal in suggestions. In fact, there are very few optional things with God. This is not one. This is a command. And you know, it concerns me deeply that many so-called Christians never know what it is to be filled with the spirit.

Do you know there are some Christians who are never really committed to this principle, and all of us at some times in our lives fail to fulfill it? But it is no less a command. And I really worry about this because today, you know, there’s a lot of material coming out, and there’s a lot of literature, and there’s a lot of discussion about the fact that you can be a Christian and not even bother with any of these things. There’s a sort of a new category in the middle. Over here you’ve got the natural man, unsaved, unregenerate, on the way to hell.

Over here we’ve got the spiritual Christian. Loves the word, loves the Lord, obeys the Lord, walks in the truth, walks in the commandments, walks in the light. And in the middle you’ve got this new box that you can stick people. They’re the saved and indifferent, you know? They got them out of hell, but they’re never going to get them into much kind of Christianity. I mean, they’re just sort of the uncommitted. I read yesterday an article by a prominent theologian who says these are the people who are saved but never walk in the light.

I don’t understand that myself. I can’t quite comprehend that. If you were saved out of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son, and if we walk in the light as he is in the light, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. But anyway, what he was saying was, they come, they’re saved, but they never get out of the darkness. They’re saved, but nothing ever happens. And we’ve made a little convenient box. We’ve got the natural and the spiritual and the carnal. We just jam everybody in there, and we can say, well, you’re all right.

You’re saved. You’re going to go to heaven. It’s okay if you don’t choose to really get on with the Christian life. You know, you’ll still make it all right. You’re not going to lose your salvation. You’ll go waltzing into heaven, and you just won’t have as big a place as the rest of us. But that’ll be all right. It’s heaven after all. And you have that very comfortable category, but that isn’t the way it is with God. The Lord doesn’t say, now, if you want to be one of the committed, then do this.

If you just want to be in the carnal box, it’s an option. He doesn’t deal like that. This is a standard that God established, and I don’t think the lordship of Christ is optional. I think it’s essential to saving faith. And I don’t want to pile people up in a comfortable little box that says, you can be a Christian and not do anything. Listen, the Lord has commanded us to be filled with his spirit. Anything less than that is flat out flagrant disobedience. And if your life is characterized by that kind of disobedience, 1 John says, you’re not a Christian, no matter what you think.

So this is critical, people. True Christians, whose faith is real, will not be content to deny the lordship of Christ. True Christians, whose faith is real, will not be content to deny the filling of the Spirit of God. They will not be content to live comfortably in a carnal box where they can just sort of say, well, I’m one of those who doesn’t choose to go to step two. No, I think this is a command, and I think it’s a command because God says it binds itself on every believer. And the only thing to do with a command of God is obey it.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of understanding being filled with the Holy Spirit. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].